When Jamie and I first started dating, Ed would refer to me as “that guy you’re slumming it with,” despite the fact that my family was just as well off as his. I think Ed was one of those fathers who would rather his child had never left home.
“How are you holding up?” I ask.
“About as you’d expect,” she says. “Damian, I’m devastated, but what makes me feel even worse is the knowledge that you and he still have all these terrible feelings toward one another. I was hesitating at the buzzer because I didn’t know if you would be ready to hear what I have to ask you.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
In the distance I can hear sirens.
“Shit, Danna called the cops because we thought you were…” Yeah, I’m not really in the mood to tell that particular story right now. “We thought you were someone else,” I tell her. “Why don’t you come in and we’ll get everything straightened out.”
Penelope follows me into the house, and as soon as Danna sees her, she drops my cell phone and rushes over to give Penelope a hug.
“Could you do a favor for me and tell the police that we won’t be requiring their assistance?” I ask my sister as she compresses Penelope’s internal organs.
“Right,” Danna says. “Sorry about that. We thought you were someone else.”
“Yeah, Damian told me,” Penelope says, looking somewhat disoriented.
“Ed’s in the hospital,” I tell Danna.
“Oh no!” Danna says. “What’s going on?”
After we convince the cops that nothing’s actually wrong, Penelope fills Danna in with what she’s already told me. “After his last bypass, the doctor told us that Ed’s heart may not be strong enough to handle another attack, so they put us on the organ donor list, but it was never an immediate thing until yesterday when it happened,” Penelope says.
“This happened yesterday?” I ask, as Danna picks up the phone and explains the situation to the operator on the other end of the line.
“Yeah,” Penelope says. “I would have called or stopped by earlier, but I’ve been trying to stay real close with Ed since his collapse.”
“No worries,” I tell her, “but do you really think Ed is going to want to see me?”
“Of course,” Penelope says, “he’d love to see you, only…”
“Only he still blames me for Jamie?” I ask.
“I’m sure that if you come by the hospital, the two of you can work it out. Damian, I wouldn’t ask, but he has so little time left, and I know he doesn’t want to see his life end with any grudges still intact,” Penelope says.
“I get that,” I tell her, “and I think you’re doing a wonderful thing. I just don’t know if he’s really ready to let go of what he thinks happened.”
“Has he said anything about Damian?” Danna asks.
Danna and Ed met on a few different occasions, but never seemed to develop an opinion of each other until after Jamie’s death. Once that happened, Ed blamed me, so he hated Danna. Danna is my sister and a decent person, so she thought the way Ed was treating me was unfair, so she started to hate him.
Around and around it goes.
“You know Ed,” Penelope says. “He’s never going to admit that he’s made a mistake until there’s no other option but for him to do it. Please,” she says, “he may only have a few days left if they can’t find a new heart for him.”
“I don’t know,” I tell her.
Danna says, “I think the least you could do would be to head over to that hospital and try to make amends.”
“That’s the problem,” I tell her. “He’s going to want me to admit that it’s my fault she?
?s dead, and as far as I’m concerned—sorry, Penelope—he can screw himself. I’m not going to have him drag me through hell just so he can feel a little better about things.”
“Damian!” Danna scolds. “The man’s in the hospital. I don’t really care what you think he is or isn’t going to do. The decent thing is to go in there and pay him a visit.”
“I’ll try,” I say, turning to Penelope. “I’m slammed with work, though.”